Bob Debus (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I must say that those opposite have spent very little time actually explaining the important role of the AFP to the members of the Australian public. It is my belief that they have been so busy in the past playing the politics of fear that they did not feel it appropriate to describe successful initiatives to deal, for instance, with counterterrorism in South-East Asia, which I will come to.

There is no doubt of the importance of the role of the Australian Federal Police in that respect. Just recently I was speaking to Dr Rohan Gunaratna, the very well known head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the Singapore technological university. And this, Mr Speaker, whatever those opposite might think, will be of great interest to others. He said to me—

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